Lots of people on the left don’t seem to like crypto on a fundamental level. A lot of the time they seem like they have a tenuous grasp on the concept, at best, and are just parroting what they heard someone else say. Most of the time they’re projecting their criticisms of Bitcoin onto the entire concept of digital currency.
I consider myself a progressive, and I got some ETH at a good time a few years ago, but I’ve been desperate for an exit point in the market for over a year (fomo feels bad man) because the sentiment for crypto among everyone who isn’t an an-cap or tech-bro hobbyist has been atrocious for some time now.
To be clear, I don’t really care for Bitcoin. It was first, and I appreciate how clever it was, mathematically and such, when it was anonymously put out there. But other than that it’s kind of shit. It’s like saying that wax cylinders are better than vinyl records, or even CDs, because they came first.
I hate that people seem to only have room in their brains for one word for “digital currency,” and it happens to be the one with no real useful functionality, while being an absolute disaster for the environment.
It’s not some kind of panacea, but writing off incredible tech. with actual use-cases like Ethereum or Monero (the former of which reduced it’s power consumption by over 99% after switching to Proof-of-Stake, and the latter does not use ASIC miners and is significantly less resource intensive than BTC), because they didn’t get it perfect on the first try. That said, Monero will never be a good long-term investment because it’s too secure and that scares governments. Monero is like what people (at least used to) think Bitcoin is… That is, anonymous, untraceable, etc. No way that succeeds as an investment, and good luck actually using it as a currency with all that volatility.
I think the concept of a digital currency is here to stay whether people like it or not. I think it makes more sense to push for ones that can potentially solve actual issues and aren’t a disaster for the environment, so people don’t call them all “Bitcoin,” like people do for “Q-Tips”. Probably too late.
If I had to guess, long term, nations will see the writing on the wall and start using their own tailor-made CBDCs (Central-Bank Digital Currency) and it’ll probably suck. They will 100% use it for control and oppression. So that’s some fun stuff to look forward to.
the former of which reduced it’s power consumption by over 99% after switching to Proof-of-Stake
This isn’t necessarily a good thing, there are many arguments against POS. You shouldn’t use non-green energy resources to begin with, if people use these to mine that’s not bitcoin fault.
No, people just don’t like crypto because it’s a huge waste of energy that has no use for the average person at the moment and is only used by rich people to get richer without much regulation. Don’t get me wrong, it might definitely be useful when used correctly in the future. Not wasting as much energy by ditching proof of work, becoming actually useful for normal transactions, etc. But right now it’s just an overhyped technology for obnoxious cryptobros.
Ethereum lowered it’s power consumption by over 99% after switching to Proof-of-Stake.
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and we don’t even fucking know who came up with it.
How about we don’t throw away the possibility of 5.1 Surround Sound Blu-Ray Audio, because wax cylinders sound like shit?
“Computers are cool and all, but they take up entire rooms and only do simple calculations! It’s a complete waste of time and money to invest in such a technology!”
I mean…I’ll go one further. I know there have been many historical “aged like milk” quotes, like about how much RAM computers need, but I’m still saying this in confidence: I don’t think that cryptocurrency or blockchains will ever have a useful purpose. Their design is built to solve societal problems, but introduces worse problems in implementing them. This goes well beyond just taking too much electricity.
Every time one of these articles is posted, I predict a very very short investigation into the technical workings of the project will find that the same could’ve been done with a much simpler central database. Or, that they were actually using a database at the backend and wasting their whole crypto approach.
They already have a useful purpose. Sending crypto is much easier than sending different currencies into different countries. The services exist, but they are prohibitively expensive if you’re sending like $50
Send Monero or something and it’s far easier and faster. You can exchange it for your own currency locally or just sit on it.
Is the government spreading anti-cryptocurrency propaganda or did lemmy got invaded by idiots recently?
Lots of people on the left don’t seem to like crypto on a fundamental level. A lot of the time they seem like they have a tenuous grasp on the concept, at best, and are just parroting what they heard someone else say. Most of the time they’re projecting their criticisms of Bitcoin onto the entire concept of digital currency.
I consider myself a progressive, and I got some ETH at a good time a few years ago, but I’ve been desperate for an exit point in the market for over a year (fomo feels bad man) because the sentiment for crypto among everyone who isn’t an an-cap or tech-bro hobbyist has been atrocious for some time now.
To be clear, I don’t really care for Bitcoin. It was first, and I appreciate how clever it was, mathematically and such, when it was anonymously put out there. But other than that it’s kind of shit. It’s like saying that wax cylinders are better than vinyl records, or even CDs, because they came first.
I hate that people seem to only have room in their brains for one word for “digital currency,” and it happens to be the one with no real useful functionality, while being an absolute disaster for the environment.
It’s not some kind of panacea, but writing off incredible tech. with actual use-cases like Ethereum or Monero (the former of which reduced it’s power consumption by over 99% after switching to Proof-of-Stake, and the latter does not use ASIC miners and is significantly less resource intensive than BTC), because they didn’t get it perfect on the first try. That said, Monero will never be a good long-term investment because it’s too secure and that scares governments. Monero is like what people (at least used to) think Bitcoin is… That is, anonymous, untraceable, etc. No way that succeeds as an investment, and good luck actually using it as a currency with all that volatility.
I think the concept of a digital currency is here to stay whether people like it or not. I think it makes more sense to push for ones that can potentially solve actual issues and aren’t a disaster for the environment, so people don’t call them all “Bitcoin,” like people do for “Q-Tips”. Probably too late.
If I had to guess, long term, nations will see the writing on the wall and start using their own tailor-made CBDCs (Central-Bank Digital Currency) and it’ll probably suck. They will 100% use it for control and oppression. So that’s some fun stuff to look forward to.
This isn’t necessarily a good thing, there are many arguments against POS. You shouldn’t use non-green energy resources to begin with, if people use these to mine that’s not bitcoin fault.
This is what the overwhelming majority of people believe. No offense, but were you spending a lot of time on r/Bitcoin?
The majority of people believes what the government makes them believe, so it make sense.
No, people just don’t like crypto because it’s a huge waste of energy that has no use for the average person at the moment and is only used by rich people to get richer without much regulation. Don’t get me wrong, it might definitely be useful when used correctly in the future. Not wasting as much energy by ditching proof of work, becoming actually useful for normal transactions, etc. But right now it’s just an overhyped technology for obnoxious cryptobros.
Bitcoin ≠ cryptocurrency.
Ethereum lowered it’s power consumption by over 99% after switching to Proof-of-Stake.
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and we don’t even fucking know who came up with it.
How about we don’t throw away the possibility of 5.1 Surround Sound Blu-Ray Audio, because wax cylinders sound like shit?
“Computers are cool and all, but they take up entire rooms and only do simple calculations! It’s a complete waste of time and money to invest in such a technology!”
^That’s you
I mean…I’ll go one further. I know there have been many historical “aged like milk” quotes, like about how much RAM computers need, but I’m still saying this in confidence: I don’t think that cryptocurrency or blockchains will ever have a useful purpose. Their design is built to solve societal problems, but introduces worse problems in implementing them. This goes well beyond just taking too much electricity.
Just gonna copy/paste this from someone else’s comment in this thread: https://www.reuters.com/technology/california-dmv-puts-42-million-car-titles-blockchain-fight-fraud-2024-07-30/
So… whoops. That didn’t take long, huh?
Every time one of these articles is posted, I predict a very very short investigation into the technical workings of the project will find that the same could’ve been done with a much simpler central database. Or, that they were actually using a database at the backend and wasting their whole crypto approach.
And we all know technology never changes or improves over time. Good catch.
Technology absolutely improves.
But blockchain is worse. And it’s not close.
They already have a useful purpose. Sending crypto is much easier than sending different currencies into different countries. The services exist, but they are prohibitively expensive if you’re sending like $50
Send Monero or something and it’s far easier and faster. You can exchange it for your own currency locally or just sit on it.
This is actually part of government propaganda to discredit cryptocurrencies.
Lemmy servers consume energy too and half of the content is memes, i don’t see anyone complaining about it.